Halifax Regional Municipality can enjoy fast, which is to say frequent, buses that get people where they need to go without turning every trip into a praying-at-the-altar-of-GoTime wait.

We can have good buses, too. Those with the kinds of amenities a rate hike, proposed in a report to the city this week by Metro Transit, is to buy.

We’re talking an upgraded automated vehicle location system for more accurate GoTime, fare boxes that take swipe cards and automated stop announcements, which would improve service for everyone, but especially newcomers and visually impaired users.

We should feel lucky if fast, good buses come as dirt cheap as a quarter more per ride.

The proposed 25-cent hike would be the first since 2008 and would aim to raise $36 million over three years for the tech upgrades. A caribou-coin extra would make Metro Transit’s adult fare $2.50. And that would still make HRM fares the lowest among similar-sized Canadian cities.

Of course, there are other possibilities.

We could pick fast and cheap, which is to say, adding more buses and routes with no rate change. But our buses wouldn’t be more than bad-smelling, noisy, ill-maintained boxes.

We could go with good and cheap, updating the technology while sticking with a $2.25 fare. But the trade-off would be fewer buses and zero new routes.

If you think it sucks that there’s no longer any late-night ferry service and if you think it’s ludicrous buses don’t run late enough to carry the drunk and donair-delirious home from the bars, then the good-cheap combo isn’t for you.

The gist of all this isn’t to roll over and take the rate hikes as they come. No, the message is that something’s gotta give in this good, cheap, fast equation. And I’ll tell you what it is — our top-dogging of car culture.

We need to put public transit higher up in the municipal funding food chain, both practically and philosophically.

Buses are a subsidized service; part of the money comes from fares and part from taxes. Transit isn’t funded this way because it’s a sweet thing to do. Taxpayers in metro help pay for buses whether they use them or not because public transit benefits everyone in the city. Not just us schmoes on the No. 7.

Public transit is a boon from an environmental perspective, from a good regional planning perspective and from a quality of life perspective.

“We like to remind people that when there is a bus in front of you in traffic that means there are fewer cars on the roads,” says city spokesperson Shaune MacKinlay.

That means less wear on costly municipal infrastructure, less exhaust, less traffic, less driver frustration, nicer and safer streets. A better city. It doesn’t matter that it may be cheaper to drive to work, because cheap is not the only driver of living well.

If the whole city benefits from transit, and those benefits escalate with faster, better and cheap transit, then let the whole city pay for transit.

If Metro Transit needs $36 million — for a start — to make its service better, great. Do it. But everyone pays. Bump property taxes, double the cost of parking meters, start charging single-occupant vehicles coming onto the peninsula. Whatever. Just don’t lay it solely on the backs of bus users.

Otherwise, everyone else is just getting a free ride.

Lezlie Lowe is a freelance writer in Halifax, cyclist, driver and bus-user. Follow her on Twitter @lezlielowe.